While Americans exercised their voices on Tuesday, proving as they do every four years that actions speak louder than pundits' words, so too did the NHL and NHLPA adhere to a similar maxim as they got back to work trying to save the 2012-13 season.

The ties between politics and the NHL lockout have been striking since the summer, right down to the league's use of Republican spinmeister Frank Luntz to focus-group their negotiating platform for optimal public relations. But just as nothing happens in an election until people go into a voting booth, the same can be said for negotiations -- nothing happens until the parties are behind closed doors.

Tuesday's actions in negotiations spoke loudly indeed. The league and union made it known, after a marathon talk between deputy commissioner Bill Daly and NHLPA special counsel Steve Fehr, that they would be meeting in New York, at an undisclosed location. The fact of the city being made public was a lure to the media to come to the Big Apple, a sign that the sides are hopeful they will be able to announce a deal.

Then, there was the arrival of Sidney Crosby, hockey's marquee player, after he skated in Pittsburgh early in the day on Tuesday. Labor negotiations really aren't the Penguins captain's thing, but he knows his role as the face of hockey in North America, and that he is expected to be present for major events. Another good sign.

Before the NHL and NHLPA began their first formal talks since the disastrous session of Oct. 18, union executive director Donald Fehr met the media in Manhattan. His comments were free of rhetoric, expressing hope for progress in negotiations while typically refusing to offer any predictions. By treading as lightly with his words as he has since opening bargaining with Gary Bettman, Fehr made it clear that the latest trip to the table was about business, not posturing.

When word came of the end of the day's festivities, shortly after 7:30 p.m. Eastern, from the secret location where the meetings were being held -- via ESPN's Pierre LeBrun on Twitter: "Meeting is over. NHL and NHLPA will meet again tomorrow." -- it was more good news, given that the last time the sides had met, there had been much bluster and finger-pointing, rather than the simple acknowledgement that talks were ongoing.

A statement from Daly followed, using two-dollar words to express the sentiment that hockey fans had long waited to hear. It wasn't quite the dream statement of "we have a deal" -- that one will come from Bettman -- but that the league would not be commenting on Tuesday's talks "out of respect for the negotiating process."

It hardly mattered that it was all a false alarm at that point, and that Daly's release had been issued prematurely. In fact, it was good news, because it meant the league and union were continuing to talk, deeper into the night, until finally calling it a night -- a good night -- a little before 11 p.m.

Meanwhile, up Sixth Avenue from NHL headquarters, NBC, the league's television partner, was painting states with red and blue on the Rockefeller Center ice rink as the election returns came in. Americans, hockey fans or not, could all share in the lockout feeling, watching an empty sheet of ice and waiting for it to fill up, hopefully faster than a 2000 Florida recount, or a 2004-05 NHL dispute.